ASCLS Continues Collaborative Efforts to Address Laboratory Reimbursement and Workforce Issues

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The theme of recent Washington Beat articles has been the Medicare Clinical Laboratory Competitive Bidding Project. This issue continues to “top” the list of legislative and regulatory issues as implementation of the demonstration project in the San Diego Metropolitan Statistical Area continues. Three San Diego-area laboratories have filed a lawsuit seeking to block the demonstration project on the grounds that the US Department of Health and Human Services failed to comply with the federal Administrative Procedure Act, failed to protect small businesses, and established a program that threatened irreparable injury to laboratories in the designated area (Sharp Healthcare v. Leavitt, S.D.Cal. No.08 CV 0170, filed 1/29/08). The American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science (ASCLS), along with the other members of the Clinical Laboratory Coalition (CLC), are supporting this lawsuit. In addition, ASCLS and other CLC member organizations continue to lobby for the passage of HR 3453 and S. 2099, bills that have been introduced to repeal the Medicare competitive bidding project for laboratory services.

As efforts continue in Washington DC to address the ongoing threats to appropriate reimbursement for clinical laboratory services, another critical issue is impacting the practice of clinical laboratory science—the increasing shortage of qualified practitioners. Although the criticality of the shortage varies geographically, there is increasing concern among employers, educators, professional associations, and policy makers that the shortage will continue to worsen. The US Bureau of Labor and Statistics projects a need of approximately 150,000 new practitioners per year through 2014. Accredited educational programs are currently graduating…